New York Irving Kristol, who died last week, was generally seen as the father of neoconservatism, a non-existent concept in Europe where we’re steeped in more traditional and less opportunistic politics. I once sat with him at a dinner in honour of William Buckley given by Drue Heinz in her east side townhouse. We were
I glanced in my rear-view mirror. A police patrol car, right on my tail, blue lights flashing. A woman cop in the passenger seat leaning forward and jabbing instructions at me with her forefinger. I was to turn left into the pub car park. I knocked up the indicator stick and swung in. The patrol
Just when I thought the junk mail on my doormat couldn’t get any more pointless, a record-breakingly worthless form of advertising has begun to pour in. It’s from my local Labour council showing off the inventive new ways it has found of spending my money. The other day I got a leaflet telling me about
Kenya An image I will never forget is of Ben Freeth’s three little children on the front lawn of their farmhouse west of Harare with Comrade ‘Landmine’ and his gun-toting, drunken gang zooming up the driveway. The ZANU-PF attackers threatened to burn down the house that day if the white farmers did not leave. I
Watch young jockey William Buick in the parade ring tipping his cap politely to owners and he looks too slight to be driving home hefty old handicappers. The pink choirboy cheeks have ladies wanting to pick up the 20-year-old and cuddle him. But like other top riders who have had those good manners and angelic
America’s superpower status is the flip side of its massive inferiority complex ‘You’re bringing a book?’ That was the reaction of Tom Colicchio, one of my fellow judges on an American reality show, when I clambered into the limousine taking us to the Emmys last Sunday. The programme in question, Top Chef, had been nominated
Q. Can you please advise. If you have been invited to meet someone at a club or a restaurant for a meeting or get-together, and you arrive before them (either because you are early or they are late for some reason), is it polite to accept the offer of a drink from the staff and
Jack pipped Mohammed as the most popular boy’s name for babies born last year. There were 8,007 Jacks and 7,576 Mohammeds, or similar spellings. To me Jack is a pet-name for John — a hypocorism, as the grammarians rejoice to call babyish versions of names. You wouldn’t baptise anyone Jack. There is no St Jack.
If the definition of a true communist is someone who would willingly live for a month in 1970s Poland, the definition of a true capitalist should be anyone who could spend a month in Las Vegas while reading nothing but Hammacher Schlemmer mail order catalogues. Even hardened materialists can find American consumerism a little much.
